Introduction

Summary

Scholars used to view “early American literature” primarily as little more than a rustic precursor to what American literature would become in its maturity. For many years as well, it was the cradle of the “New England Mind,” that place where America’s religious origins might be found and established. In recent years, however, the study of early American literature has expanded in several intriguing directions. From the perspective of temporality or period, scholars now consider “early America” to extend back into the fifteenth century and as far forward as the 1830s. Linguistically, the archive “early America” now speaks and records in a number of languages other than English. Socially and culturally, we consider the literatures of enslaved persons, women, and Indigenous persons formerly forgotten by such histories. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a single book or perspective adequately capturing the proliferation of the field’s recognition, which is why this multivoice volume is so needed as this point.